HUMABM
на
I Letter to issue
383
ddIDENTIAL
pa
ELD
2 Mr Smith
27 AUG 1987
26/4
Thank
་
you.
FROM:
HONG
sen
SMITH
HONG KONG DEPARTMENT
Ais Lord Glenorther 2/8
Милиц
20 Jan
DATE: 20 August 1987
cc. PS/Lord Glenarthur
Mr Fifoot, Legal Advisers
Mr Maar en
PS/Mr Eggar
LETTER FROM THE EARL OF WINCHILSEA:
STATUS OF PRISONERS IN HONG KONG AFTER 1997
A
B
1.
I submit a draft reply to the Earl of Winchilsea's recent
letter to Lord Glenarthur (attached).
2.
The letter is rather muddled and it is by no means clear
exactly what concerns Lord Winchilsea. It is evident, however, that
it follows up a series of PQs earlier this year from Messrs.
Meadowcroft and Ashdown. The relevant extracts from Hansard are
attached.
3.
Lord Winchilsea's principal concern appears to be the possibility that a fugitive offender returned to Hong Kong before 1997 under the Fugitive Offenders Act 1967 might become, in 1997,
subject to the PRC's criminal code and suffer, retroactively, a
harsher sentence (perhaps execution) for the offence he committed.
The draft reply is self-explanatory in dealing with this worry.
4.
I suspect that Lord Winchilsea and his colleagues in the Liberal Party may have at the back of their minds a more general worry about arrangements that may be in place after 1997 for the exchange of fugitives between Hong Kong and the rest of the PRC. The letter does not explicitly refer to this, although the phrase at the end of the first paragraph about protecting "the rights of prisoners transferred to the PRC in 1997" may be an oblique
reference to it.
CONFIDENTIAL